Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Kitchen Equipment-long

[Stevenson/Bitner (lilbert]

>What cooking equipment are you using? (make/model, #of burners, BTU of
>burners, griddle?, grill?, wok burner?, #of ovens, size of ovens,
>convection, warming drawers? - and so on). Also, what type of dishwasher
>are you using?
>
>How is this equipment working out? What would you like to change? 
>
>To put this information in context: How many people attend your meals, 
>typically?
>
>Right now, the $1,500 question is this: Will we often need to have more 
>than four burners going at the same time? 
We feed 30-50 people per meal.  We have two stoves, and one dishwasher, 
and are putting in another dishwasher and deeper sinks next week.  Yes, 
you will absolutely use more than four burners at one time, and often 
enough to have two stoves.  For that matter, we use both ovens at many 
meals as well, so it's a must.  I don't know that make and model are as 
important as the features.  We occasionally use the griddle, but could 
live without it.  A wok burner takes up lots of space, and you'll need to 
have more than one wok going at a time anyway, so get the highest BTU 
stove you can get your hands on, and use the woks on the stove.  Don't 
get a commercial stove; they get way too hot for safety.  There are some 
new ones that have the safety features of a home unit and the btus of a 
commercial unit.  I'd recommend looking into them.  Also, you will be 
using big pots, and residential stoves have burners close together.  We 
can't use all the burners on the stove at the same time, so the savings 
in getting residential stoves was a false economy.

You'll get lots of conflicting advice on dishwashers. There are basically 
two camps, commercial or residential.  Commercial dishwashers are 
counter-level and are finished with a cycle in a few minutes.  People say 
they love them, but I don't. You need a stainless steel countertop, and 
they are VERY noisy. Also, that's wasted counter space.  On the other 
hand, residential washers take a long time.  We opted for residential, 
but I think that one depends very much on your individual kitchen and 
people's needs.  

My opinion on warming drawers, convection ovens, and grills is that these 
are frills, and will probably be taken out of the plans when the budget 
gets tight anyway!  If I were to pick one that would be useful, though, 
I'd go with the convection oven.  They make cooking faster and more 
foolproof.

Good luck!

Liz Stevenson
Southside Park Cohousing
Sacramento, CA